


Portal: Transference

by Frog_Eats_Bog



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gen, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, M/M, OC main character, Portal 2 Spoilers, Portal Spoilers, Pre-Canon, Pre-Portal, half-life - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:06:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27553564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frog_Eats_Bog/pseuds/Frog_Eats_Bog
Summary: Bella, a simple average adult working at Aperture Laboratories. She didn't have much going for her. Till the annual bring your daughter to work day in 1998 she found started to know something was off. She didn't know what till another employee asked her to partake in the vivication of a new Intelligent genetic lifeform and disk operating system. But things don't exactly go as planed.This also fallows the story of Virgil as he helps Bella escape the facility while trying to stay hidden from the sentient A.I.
Relationships: Rainbow Core/Virgil
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	1. Old and New Beginnings

“GOOD MORNING, AND WELCOME TO THE APERTURE SCIENCE POTATO SCIENCE INITIATIVE CENTER!”

Bella had heard this automated voice every day as she stepped into work . She was always sick of the announcer on the intercom. She always wondered why they had to play that message every time an employee walked into the area. 

“THE ENRICHMENT CENTER WOULD LIKE TO INFORM YOU THAT TODAY IS THE ANNUAL BRING YOUR DAUGHTER TO WORK DAY”

Bella looked up as this was the first time she had heard this in a long while, and as expected there were hundreds of children bumbling about with their parents. There were several what she could only presume to be science fair experiments lined up on tables in the halls. She remembered the first time she was taken out of school to stay over at her dad's old office building to bring your kid to work every two years. 

She smiled at the thought of being a kid again, not having worries, responsibilities, or work.  
Her job was quite boring if she had to say. Mundane average, little to no effort.. It was as easy as cutting potatoes.  
No, really,. her job was actually cutting potatoes.

She walked over to her office and sat down on one of the hard, dirty office chairs, as the good ones were too expensive.to make even if the company had billions.

She stretched her arms and yawned as she began her day as always.  
She pressed one of the buttons to turn on a robotic arm, the arm powered on and started to slowly hand her roots, and she began chopping them in half.  
She began to wonder why her job even existed, as the engineers could just make a potato cutting machine themselves. 

She figured that they just needed a job to give her since she figured an actual job requires communication, which she physically lacks.  
Living mute has always effected her ever since childhood.  
Memories of teachers yelling at her to speak up.  
Memories of people saying horrible stuff upfront and not being able to tell them to leave her alone.  
Memories of nobody wanting to be near her.

She just shrugged it off, as she had been dealing with this for years and had just gotten used to solidarity. Plus, she already had the job and got at least a small sum of money from it, and she got back to chopping. She thought yet again.  
Why do the engineers need this many potatoes anyway?  
She looked intently at the dull colored root in thought. Then shrugged it off yet again.

Bella had always dreamt of becoming an engineer and making “real” science.  
Ever since she was young she was fascinated by the concept.  
She used to take the family TV then tore it apart and put it back together, and gamble a lot of random parts together and thought of it as a "master invention".  
She smiled, thinking back on the old days, when times were simpler, nobody to fear, no work to worry about.  
Suddenly, she snapped out of her daze with a friendly voice her way.

“Ay there!”

It was Virgil, her coworker. He swept back his long dark hair and put up a big smile. Bella just looked at him puzzled, as Virgil wasn’t normally in such a cheerful mood. He hardly even left his office to get food since he was such a workaholic. He was also the head engineer which put a lot of pressure on him.

“Guess who just got a new promotion?” Virgil yapped excitedly in a tone that was quite unusual for cold and bleary demeanor.

Bella turned her desk chair over to him, stood up, and gave him an uninterested slow clap.

Clap.  
Clap.  
Clap.

Bella didn't really like any of the employees in Aperture, she preferred to keep interaction with them at a minimum since to her, everyone there was an absolute nutcase with no common human decency. Though, she still was happy for Virgil and his successes. 

He was the only one she could really stand. He was a very kind person which to her were quite 

“What was that all about?’’ asked Virgil in a joking tone. Bella just chuckled.

“You know what is strange though? It’s that they never said what it was for, I've also heard people have been skipping work lately after receiving raises or promotions. Even more than usual.". Said Virgil slightly worried.  
“It's almost like they’ve been disappearing”  
He looked down worryingly but shot up afterwards.  
“Maybe they’ve all realized how bad this place really is hehe”.  
He chuckled as if he wanted to try and reassure himself he wouldn't go missing either.

He then proceeded to walk out of Bella’s office and yelled out to her,  
“I'll be in the employee lounge if you wanna join me-”  
Bella then proceeded to chop, like before as she saw the rusty haired man walk off into the distance getting smaller and smaller.

IV  
Virgil

Virgil was just sitting down in the employees lounge with a cup o’ coffee and an Aperture Times magazine, he was supposed to be at work in the maintenance room where he would go days without food working on a project. As he was the top engineer in the right wing, but he thought it was a good time to just relax because he's going to partake in a life altering test anyway. It was supposed to improve his work abilities or something like that. He didn't really know why the scientists called it that anyway but he shrugged it off as the worst they could do is put eyes on his back, right?

He was then greeted by a familiar sly voice.  
“Oh hello there gorgeous~”  
Virgil blushed slightly and looked up. He could only see a tall dark haired man with a rainbow tie leaning by the door frame.  
“H-hello to you too,” said Virgil in a flustered, shy mess of a sentence.  
Virgil didn't know the name of this guy but has had some feelings for them for quite a while. He didn't see him often though because the guy worked at basically the exact opposite wing of the Aperture facility.  
The guy then flipped back his hair and gave Virgil a cheeky smile, then walked off into the corridor. He always dreamt of maybe hanging out with him some time, or better yet asking him his name. But alas, he couldn't even work up the courage to talk to him. He sighed, and took a sip of the black and bitter caffeine filled drink. 

Then his drink shook a bit as two, what he can only presume were scientists, walked up to him. He looked up and got a good look at them.  
“Hello sir,”  
one of them declared.  
“It says here you are appointed for a test in exactly a minute”  
said one of the men.  
He had a nicely fit blue tie and lab coat, with short, nicely kept, brown hair. He was one of the lead engineers on the G.L.a.D.O.S project. His name was Bradly. 

The other one, which looked like they haven't slept in eons, with scuffed hair and droopy eyes, just motioned Virgil to stand up. Virgil didn't even know this guy or his name. He felt like he knew him or had seen him before somehow.  
“Whatever you say I guess.” said Virgil as he got up and started down the hallway with the scientists.  
“It's over here in, uh, covertio- I mean test room 17’’.  
The “Test room” door had a crossed out Surgical personality sphere conversion room and repair center on it lightly highlighted with red. 

Virgil looked at them as if they were about to do something horrible, but he kept his cool so as not to show he was absolutely terrified. Then, the well kept scientist opened the compact door with a seemingly large key code. The door creaked open and Virgil studied the room. There were lots of wires and surgical tools surrounding the walls, with a little rust colored metal robot thing covered with a brown tropical print over on a table.  
Then he looked at the middle, which had some kind of surgical table  
What the hell is going on here?  
Wait their not gonna-  
“Its for science”  
Uttered one of the scientists under their breath but just enough for Virgil to hear.  
Virgil was cut from his thoughts when he felt an aching feeling in his gut and a sharp pain in his back as he fell to the floor. His vision blurred as he slowly creeped away from consciousness.

II  
Bella

Bella was at her desk daydreaming as her boring job had nothing interesting happen, ever. She missed her youth and would often day daydream of her high school years and all the crazy shit that went on back then. Heartbreak, drama, action. She usually was never apart of all of it but damn she thought it was fun to watch. That's all she needed, not to be cooped up in a little office cutting goddamn potatoes.

Nothing really ever happened in Bella’s adult life. She got up, got ready for work, fed her cat Olive, went to work, went home, ate, and the cycle repeated. This cycle has repeated for over 6 long years. A few interesting things happening here and there but not much.. This cycle was about to end on this day. Today was the day it all was about to go down.

Someone with a lab coat entered Bella's office. This guy was tall and had short black hair pulled back with a freshly shaved goatee. He approached Bella and cleared his voice.  
“Hello there Ms. Williams, I'm here to inform you that today we will be finally launching G.L.a.D.O.S after 15 long years of work. I am pleased to inform you that we have a special role for you in powering her on. ''  
The person then handed Bella some sort of directions sheet and left as if he was very excited to see the machine up and running. Bella took a look at the sheet. And as expected of Aperture, it was a three hour walk to get there.  
She sighed heavily as got up and headed out of her office. She braced herself for what could happen next.


	2. Change in Body

IV  
Virgil

Virgil awoke to see himself on some operating table looking pretty much dead. He noticed that everything he saw was lightly tinted with yellow. He couldn’t move or remember anything. He was small and couldn't feel anything. He couldn't breath, but at the same time he didn't need to. It was a chronic numbness.

Then the same scientist from earlier walked up to him. The man grabbed a chair and sat down. He cleared his throat and began to speak.  
“Hello core #2056, I'm just going to ask you a few questions real quick”.  
“Um, ok then”  
“What is your name?”  
“Virgil, I think?”  
“Good. Do you remember anything from the past?”  
“Wait, um… I-I don't know”  
“Good” the man responded.

Virgil was too tired to think to ask questions or freak out. He only just wanted to doze off.  
“Do you mind if I take a nap real quick”?  
The man just nodded and walked off to presumably report his findings to the other scientists in the room.   
Virgil then shut his optic and went into some kind of hibernation mode. He didn't know what was going on or why he was in some kind of robot body, he just wanted a break.

After quite some time later Virgil awoke again in pure shock. What the hell did they do to me? These thoughts started going haywire in his head and he shot open practically screaming for help. He started to notice that he didn't have a body, a human one at that.

There was no one in the room, everyone seemed to have left. He started yelling as loud as his speakers could calibrate.  
“I don't know what's going on! Help!” 

II  
Bella

Bella was about two thirds of the way there when she looked around. Everything seemed too normal but the atmosphere felt off. Almost as if something really bad was about to happen.   
She then got some kind of gut feeling and sank to the white tiled floor because she didn't think something bad was going to happen, she knew it.  
She got up and headed hesitantly towards the door heat beating and pulse rushing, she was terrified about what would happen next but was slightly intrigued and wanted to have some kind of action in her life. 

Another scientist greeted her and asked her at the front of an entrance door to follow them. He passed by an office and noticed that everyone there was at the edge of their seats filled with entropy awaiting the A.I’s startup. 

She was finally near to her assignment in a small room nearby, which only had a button, desk, and chair.  
“Now your only task is very simple, simply just press that red button on the wall over there when the voice on the intercom tells you to”

Bella nodded and sat down on the beige colored chair and put her head over on the desk waiting for the orders to come in and waited in anxious anticipation on the outcome.  
This wasn't the first time GLaDOS had ever attempted to be put online and tried to kill everyone there.   
She remembered the first time it happened she was home, so she didn't have much to worry about. This time was different, this time she was right in front of the action. 

Her heart raced as fast as it had ever before. She stood up and paced around the compact room.   
"Is this really gonna happen?"  
"Am II going to die?"  
She thought.  
Wait  
She stopped herself and took a deep breath. And realized that there was really nothing she could do about it if she just whined about it. She decided to devise a plan to escape if anything went wrong.

But just before she could think of a door opened up behind her.   
She jumped at the sudden rebuttal of the clanking metal and looked out to see a glass window which outlooked the soon to be activated A.I in the room.

A voice then came in through the intercom.

“Ok Bella were ready, go press the button over there to initiate the startup sequence”  
Bella took a deep breath and put her hand on the illuminated red button not yet applying pressure to actually press it.   
This was it, this could have been her last moment of life.

IV  
Virgil

Virgil just sat there in the operating room testing out his controls and what little things he could do with his new servos, etcetera. He had actually become quite comfortable in his new body, if you could even call it that. 

The utmost silence with the exception of the slight tingling soothed him in a way. He had just freaked out going absolutely insane before finally realizing there wasn't much he could do other than scream for help.   
He felt at peace. 

No experiments or science to be done, this is all he wanted. He just wanted some time to himself. Not to be worrying about some other useless project. He was just constantly working, day and night, sometimes without eating a meal for days on end. 

Then, all of a sudden a realization popped into his head. 

He remembered that today was the day that the G.L.a.D.O.S project would come to its conclusion. He knew he had to put a stop to it and somehow hijack the system. He had tried before to shut down the operation but proved unsuccessful. He needed to try and get another shot at it, but he didn't know how he would do anything while being stuck in the room he was in now. He needed to somehow find a way to get up and move around.

“Does this thing have any connection with the rest of the facility?”  
“Nothing there. Does this, oh wait no”.  
“Ah! Here is something. Wi-fi connection huh? I guess that works the same as a computer?”

Virgil heard a sudden voice that announced “CONNECTED”  
“Nice! Now how do i get out of this place?”  
The rust colored core then sifted through some files till he found one called Personality sphere management rail access 

“WOULD YOU LIKE TO ACCESS THE APERTURE SCIENCE LABORATORIES EXTENDED MANAGEMENT RAIL ACCESS?”   
“Yes!” Virgil yapped urgently.

“GOOD, NOW COMMENCING RAIL ATTACHMENT PROTOCOL”

A small panel opened up from the ceiling revealing a large mechanical claw. The claw lowered to Virgil's level. Then it began to grab Virgil and recoiled back to the ceiling.

Another panel opened and with it came a large metal rail contraption loosely resembling train tracks from a child's wooden toy set. It began to extend outwards inches away from Virgil.

The claw then attached the floral core over onto the rail and it all snapped into place.  
“CORE ATTACHMENT SUCCESSFUL”

Virgil shook his optic a little and headed out towards the track of rails head full with no plan besides stopping the rogue A.I from being activated yet again. Since it could be the last time anyone in the almost everyone in the facility would breathe.

Even if he was stuck in a round robot thing, how stressful the days and nights he worked without stopping, how his life was drained by this job, he still was devoted to that god damn facility and wouldn't give up on now.

He wouldn’t.


End file.
